Review:
“It's…hard to believe now that for much of his [pre-Born in the U.S.A.] career Bruce Springsteen was a gigantic cult artist; a musician who could sell a couple of million records and fill hockey rinks, but who was was no more likely than Elvis Costello to get airplay on pop radio.” CDU On the strength of seven top-ten pop hits, this album sold 30 million copies worldwide and “catapulted Bruce Springsteen from cult-favorite critics’ darling to stadium-rocking global superstar.” JW While Born in the U.S.A., “trafficked in much the same struggle” AMG as 1982’s Nebraska, Springsteen “softened his message with nostalgia and sentimentality” AMG as his characters reminisce of Glory Days which have passed them by and how, in My Hometown, a father proudly shows his son around the town only to have that son grow up to sadly show his son how desolate the town became.

Glory Days

Bruce also added “big, sing-along choruses” CDU and a commercial slant unseen in his previous work. The music “incorporates new electronic textures while keeping as its heart all of the American rock & roll from the early Sixties…Springsteen…embraced…the legacy of Phil Spector’s releases, the sort of soul that was coming from Atlantic Records and especially the garage bands.” DM The album reminds us that what “teenagers loved about rock and roll wasn’t that it was catchy or even vibrant but that it just plain sounded good.” RC The result is his “best…pure pop songwriting ever.” AZ Nowhere is this better exemplified than with Dancing in the Dark, “the breathtaking first single” DM and the biggest hit of his career.

Dancing in the Dark

Springsteen rattles off one of his most powerful anthems with the title cut, Born in the U.S.A.. Thinking the song extolled the pride of being American, “the witless wonders of the Reagan regime attempted to co-opt…[it] as an election-year campaign song.” AMG The fact that it was “a brutal account” CDU of “the disenfranchisement of a lower-class Vietnam vet” AMG “whose country forgot him” AZ escaped their attention completely.

Born in the U.S.A. (live)

It signaled that the characters wouldn’t be like previous album’s “scruffy hoods with colorful names like the Magic Rat…[but] nameless working stiffs” JW who “dread getting stuck in the small towns they grew up in almost as much as they worry that the big world outside holds no possibilities.” DM In I'm on Fire, lyrics like “Someone took a knife, baby, edgy and dull/ And cut a six-inch valley through the middle of my soul” evoke an image of a “pock-marked Harry Dean Stanton type, lying, too wired to sleep, in a motel room.” DM

I’m on Fire

Still, “Springsteen’s exuberant voice and the swell of the music clues you that they haven’t given up.” DM For example, on the “classic buddy/road song” JWDarlington County, Springsteen sings of “two guys [who] pull into a hick town begging for work…but he gives them music they can pound on the dashboard to.” DMNo Surrender is “a friendship anthem for the ages” JW and “one of the best tunes the man has ever written.” JWBobby Jean also touches on the hopeful endurance of friendship. It serves as an ode to guitarist Steve Van Zandt, who’d just left the band. Certainly lyrics like “‘Maybe you’ll be out there on that road somewhere/ In some motel room there’ll be a radio playing and you’ll hear me sing this song/ Well, if you do, you’ll know I’m thinking of you and all the miles in between’” DM “may put a lump in your throat” DM but thanks to a “wall of sound with a soaring saxophone solo…the music says, Walk tall or don’t walk at all.” DM

Friday, July 6, 1984

By mid-1984, Michael Jackson was the biggest music star on the planet. On its way toward becoming the biggest selling album in history, his Thriller album generated seven top-ten hits on the Billboard Hot 100, more than any album in history.

Click to see the DMDB page for Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’

Naturally the world clamored for Jackson to hit the road. Instead of launching a solo venture, he and his five brothers toured as The Jacksons. It would be the final concert tour for the group. The Victory tour started on July 6, 1984 and ended five months later on December 9. With a gross of roughly $75 million, it was the largest-grossing tour of all time up to that point. Approximately two million caught Jackson and his brothers in 55 shows across the United States and Canada.

The tour generated controversy for selling a then-record number of tickets at the then-high price of $30 a seat. Buyers also had to purchase blocks of four tickets at a time. The Jacksons themselves made good money from the tour, but the promoters lost millions.

Other than a medley of Jermaine’s solo hits, Michael handled all lead vocals. The set list focused on his solo work from Thriller and Off the Wall as well as The Jacksons’ material from the Destiny and Triumph albums. An album, also called Victory, was released in conjunction with the tour but none of the songs were performed live. The lead single, “State of Shock”, debuted on the Billboard charts the week before the tour launched and eventually reached #3.

The Jacksons with Mick Jagger “State of Shock” (includes clips from the Victory tour)